Tag Archive: music

Because my life is pretty much consumed by homework right now, at least until I leave for (and return from) Europe, and because my computer is sick and no longer in my possession, I have turned to mind-numbing movies to fill the silence. I can’t focus when things are too quiet. I have to have background noise when I do homework. Actually, I pretty much require background noise always, but that is neither here nor there. My point is that I have “watched” a lot of musicals this week.

Usually, I use my iTunes to enhance my homework time. I have an entire playlist dedicated to instrumental music. It includes original scores to some of my favorite movies and the classics, you know, Mozart, Pachelbel, Beethoven, Brahms. Usually, if I listen to words in songs, I’ll sing along rather than actually absorb whatever information I’m reading.

It was a little weird at first, not having my computer with my iTunes to help lull me into the homework zone. I started by playing the Harry Potter movies sequentially. Those are movies that I can have in the background and effectively complete my econ homework but that I can also easily get sucked into watching. Luckily, when I sat down with the intent to do homework, the movies weren’t distracting. In fact, I am so familiar with the scores to each of the movies that not only did I find myself quoting the lines of the movie, I also found myself humming along to the music in the background of each scene. Nerd alert!

Last night, like the cool person that I am, I sat down to write my discussion questions for Econ and a website review for my Finance class, I decided that I should put in a musical, that way I wouldn’t be too tempted to sit and actually watch the movie. I started with Mamma Mia and then moved onto the High School Musical Movies.

I didn’t think this would be problematic. I thought that since I’m so familiar with the HSM movies, I would be able to tune out and not care about what was happening on screen.

No such luck.

The HSM movies are so appalling to me that I sit and watch and giggle to myself at how ridiculous they are. (Obviously, this does not negate the fact that I own all three on DVD, can quote each movie, and know all the words to every single song.) I may be 23 years old, but I can’t help but love Disney.

This led me to think about how awesome Disney Channel Original Movies were when I was younger. I grew up with Even Stevens and Lizzie McGuire; I know those aren’t movies but I loved them nonetheless. I lived for the Zenon Trilogy. Ryan Merriman was my teenage dream, with Smart House and Luck of the Irish. Step-Sister from Planet Weird was awesome. I look(ed) forward to Halloweentown every single October. I didn’t even really like the Thirteenth Year, but I watched that shit every single time I saw that it was on. I cried when I watched Tru Confessions and told anyone who would listen that Shia LaBeouf’s performance was beyond excellent.

Dude, what happened to the youth of America? Why is everything (with the exception of Wizards of Waverly Place) on the Disney Channel so fucking stupid?!

I guess I’ll just continue watching High School Musical 3: Senior Year as I begin my never-ending finance homework. Nothing like financial risk to get the mind racing and the blood pumping!

I thought I would share with you, my friends, just a few things I am obsessed with lately. I usually throw in, like, one or two examples in any given post, but I don’t see why I can’t just put the major ones in one place for you. You know, in case you want to be exactly like me and like all the same things I do. If that’s the case, then, DUDE, it’s your lucky day!!

Dance Music

I’m obsessed with my itunes playlist for when I workout. I add to it constantly and spent a lotttt of time putting songs that put me in the zone into one place. There is nothing worse than sweating your butt off to Ke$ha’s “Blow” for the song to end and segue into a slow jam like “Not Like the Movies” by Katy Perry. Don’t get me wrong- I LOVE Katy Perry, but I cannot keep my heart rate up if a song with less than, like, 120 beats per minute. I got some ideas from searching online for fitness playlists, and Shape Magazine’s website proved to be pretty helpful. Another thing I did was use my library’s website to find mix CDs of songs I like that were remixed for “the club”- which means that a techno-y beat was added and they’re usually sped up quite a bit.

S&M Remix

This gets its own bullet point because it’s just THAT good. As you can see from above, I’m currently listening to Rihanna’s S&M Remix with Britney Spears. Oh. My. Gawd. I cannot get enough. I listen to it on repeat and can’t stop.

You must purchase it on itunes. Don’t illegally download that shit. I don’t believe in it (when it’s an artist I like).

Harry Potter

I am sure I have probably shared this with you before, but I am rereading all of the Harry Potter books. And by “rereading” I mean “listening to them on CD because I’m too lazy to actually read and I enjoy listening to books in the car since my drive to work is 40+ minutes.”

I’m currently listening to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Every single day, I listen and I just can’t believe how amazing these books are. Every single day, I am amazed by how much I had forgotten. Every single day, I get angry that so much is cut from the movies. Every single day, I send angry text messages to Drew about that fact. Every single day, I try to work in Harry Potter vocabulary into my everyday lexicon. For example, I used the following sentence today:

See? I would totally unforgivable-curse the shit out of the powers that be in Hollywood that decided that the Harry Potter movies shouldn’t be like 8 hours long and shouldn’t include all the awesome little details I love about the books. No big deal. A lifetime in Azkaban for using an unforgivable curse? I guess since it would benefit the greater good, I could take the fall for that one.

Ron + Hermione = ❤

Yeah, I’m a huge nerd.

I don’t care what you think of me but I think that the two of them are just adorable. If you ‘ship anything other than Ron/Hermione and Harry/Ginny, you’re retarded and we can’t be friends. I mean, go ahead and do whatever you want, but know there will be consequences.

They’re just too adorable for words.

Love love love!!

The Office

I’ve been watching it on DVD lately and hate myself for not getting into it when it first aired back when I was just a baby in high school. Okay, so that’s obviously the reason I never got into it. That and I tend to jump on board to things way after the fact. Oh well. All that matters is that I’ve seen the light and love it now.

I just finished the fifth season on DVD and now have to wait forever and ever for my library to let me watch season six, since I’m, like, 16 or 16 holds. No big deal, I’ll just watch it in four months. I’m not mad.

I should also mention this: subset of this obsession can be my love of Jim and Pam on the show and just my general adoration of John Krasinski. He is a chunk of nerd-alert, awkward-face-making, man-sass sexiness.

Mmmkay, guys. There are five of several hundred obsessions that I have. Please make a note of these and brush up on these things. That way we will have lots to talk about and you can truly begin your mission of becoming just like me, because I know that’s what you’re working towards in life.

Oh, ps. I’m also in a really good mood right now because I just took my final for class and now the hell that I endured for the past seven weeks is officially behind me. Win. Win. Win. (#charliesheen #winning)

There are just some songs that stick with you sometimes, you know? The ones that replay in your head over and over again. The ones that you can listen to endlessly and never get sick of.

Dude. I totally have one of those right now.

This love affair has lasted longer than I can even remember. I don’t know the first time I heard the song but I’m fairly certain that I was like oh em gee, more please! the first time I heard it.

I saw the video for it and decided I would still love the song despite the fact that the video elicits the following reaction: uhm, what the fuck?

Any guesses?

Whatever, I’ll tell you. Just a Dream by Nelly.

What I love about it is that new Nelly sounds like old Nelly, which I think is great. If only Christina Aguilera would go back to the days of What a Girl Wants or the entire Stripped album. Ugh.

Anyway, the best part about Just a Dream is this cover I found by these youtubers I am slightly obsessed with. Kurt Schneider and Sam Tsui do covers and make videos of all kinds of stuff and every single one is good. Even though Sam reminds me of a Disney Prince of some sort. He smiles all the damn time! Love love love!!

I especially love when Christina sings. Her voice is so so so so good. Oh, and the Usher part about not being able to let it burn, obviously. And the part where you have to put your hands up if you’ve ever loved somebody. I do it even though I haven’t been in love. Not for real.

And that time I did tell someone I loved him, I totally lied. Because, hello, it’s rude to not say it when someone expects you to say it. And apparently I’m a people-pleaser?! Dick move, self. Whatever.

It’s just that love is pretty much just fucked. And, while it’s a precious concept and I do wish that two people really could be together forever and stuff, let’s get real, it just doesn’t really exist.

Except for in the case of Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Love exists for them.

Ugh. I suppose I can save my bitter cynicism for another day.

Hope your President’s Day-weekend is/was excellent. I have tomorrow off from work for the holiday. Win. I plan on sleeping in. In my own bed.

“Candy”? That’s a good fucking song. I don’t care that it is a hundred years old and bubble gum pop. I love it. I don’t even care that Mandy Moore herself hates it. (Someone told me they read or saw something that said that Mandy Moore actually hates hates hates her first single, Candy.) It’s catchy and fun.

I mean it! Look at her! She looks great and that’s a hard haircut to pull off! She rocked it!

I love that she has tried out different haircuts and colors. I’m glad she decided to stick to being a brunette. She’s gorgeous. Also, I even liked her short, pixie cut- you know, the one she rocked in How to Deal.

Speaking of How to Deal, I loved it. Obviously.

Dude, I read the books by Sarah Dessen, then ones from which the movie was adapted.

Mandy Moore did a great job.

I’m pretty sure I own every movie she has been in, actually.

Look, I know that I’m not exactly the harshest critic because I generally enjoy pretty much ever chick-flick ever made, but I think she’s got the chops. You know, acting chops. Isn’t that the term that’s used??

I mean, really, she’s just so… great.

Anyway, this all stems from the fact that I’m watching the season finale (season 6) of Grey’s Anatomy with my brother and Mom. My house is currently Basketcaseville.

Tam was pacing around the living room for the first twelve minutes before she tried to sit in her teal recliner and play a game of spider to no avail. She’s hiding in her room right now. Drew, on the other hand, is at least seated on the couch, but he keeps running his hands through his hair, rubbing his forehead and hiding his face in his shirt.

“I just find this so disturbing,” Tam said, as she emerged from her bedroom, “I just can’t- I can’t- I just can’t….”

She just took the leash, the dog and headed outside while fighting off tears of anxiety.

Luckily I’ve seen the finale. I watched it when it aired and I was a resident of Basketcaseville. I pretty much sat on the couch, biting off my nails and either crying or on the verge of tears throughout the whole two-hour ordeal.

It was never really a mystery to us why it seemed like our entire floor in the dorms in college hated us.

Sarah and I lived in the room at the very end of the hallway. Our perfect square of a room was the gathering place every Thursday night to watch The OC and later Grey’s Anatomy. Our room was the meeting place of the whole group of us for those three or four nights a week we went out to parties. And later, our sophomore year of college, our room was next door to two of our good friends, whose room would blare with the latest Justin Timberlake song or One Republic’s “Apologize” before it was cool and overplayed on the radio.

We did dumb shit, like dress up like the some cracked out version of the Spice Girls and sing really, really loudly after 2 in the morning. You know, when the whiners on our floor were sleeping, and had been since 11 pm.

As a group, we’re loud. I mean, I scream and screech a lot, I laugh loudly, and I shout when I’m happy or excited. Multiply that by at least four and you’ve got my core group of friends in college. And we were together constantly.

Add in the fact that we lived in an all-girls dorm. In the really, really old dorms. As in, I lived in the same dormitory my grandmother lived in. The same dormitory my mother lived in. It’s old. We also lived in the dorm mostly populated by the college of music kids. They’re all artsy and hipster-y and obviously too smart and better than us to get loud and crazy all the fucking time, like we did. The best part about our dorm is that it was the closet to the street with all the bars on it. And it was relatively close to a lot of the off-campus housing and greek life. (And let’s get real: I loved me some fraternity parties before I was of the legal drinking age.)

I think this photo adequately demonstrates the potential Le Le and I have when it comes to getting crazy. lolz (Ps. Le, does that headband look familiar? bahaha)

My point is, our floor hated us.

We were constantly hushed and asked nicely to be quiet. And when all else failed, we were told on. When we realized that the RA’s were about to come bust us, we’d quickly finish the shot glass full of five o’clock vodka on Leah’s or my desk, turn the music off, grab our coats and fly out the door.

I mean, we didn’t want to get written up. Again. Or have to pour our alcohol down the bathroom sink. Again.

Even when we weren’t drinking (illegally) in the dorms, we were loud. And probably really, really obnoxious. I’ll leave you with this one memory I have, a memory that really reinforced the fact that everyone on our floor just did not get me, or my friends.

You know how in college dorms there are all kinds of random-ass signs for random-ass shit? Like, sign up for ballroom dancing in one of the rooms by the cafeteria, or do you need a tutor for some really hard singing class you’re taking? Well, I can’t remember why we decided to make a sign but one night we did, and we hung it on the walls all over our hallway, and all of the doors to the bathrooms, and the mirrors, and the door to the stairs.

It was a nice sign. It didn’t ask anyone to donate their first born to some demonic cult or require anyone to spend any money on anything. It was just a nice little sign to remind people to have a good day and to provide a little pick-me-up. Sometimes people just need that. Classes are hard. It’s really hard to walk fifty feet to a building across a nice little field to go sing for a couple hours a day. And it gets cold in Michigan. And sometimes blowing off class on a Friday to play Ultimate Frisbee in Adam’s Field is just really… hard. So we posted our sign to let people know we cared.

Our sign was not appreciated. When we woke up the next morning, every single sign had been torn down and thrown away.

1.) I got Nicole Richie’s new bookPricelessfrom the library. I’m so psyched to read it! I read her first book as more of a joke than anything else but I actually really liked it. haha I think this one’s gonna be good.

2.) Oh, speaking of books I’m reading, I finished The Pactby Jodi Picoult finally! It was SO GOOD!! I loved it! I didn’t know what was going to happen and it was like I couldn’t read fast enough. You should read it!

3.) I’m on a country music kick. I mean, I generally always enjoy country but lately it’s as if I just can’t get enough. I want it all the time.

4.) I had the following conversation today via text:

megan: bahahaa you live a kesha life fo shoooo

me: Hahaha sometimes you just gotta rub some dirt on it, roll in some glitter, brush your teeth with a bottle of jack, dance with no pants on, look like a pimp in a gold trans am, and like someone’s beard while having a slumber party in your basement. you just gotta.

5.) I think that was the best text message I’ve ever written. And I summed up Ke$ha real good.

6.) I miss having a dog.

7.) I still have no idea what I’m going to be for Halloween and it’s stressing me out. I keep getting really good suggestions but I just don’t know what to do!

8.) I watched My Generation on ABC and fell in love. It might be my favorite new show this season. I won’t give up watching Vampire Diaries to watch it when it’s actually on TV but I really, really love it. Like, I love everything about it. You should watch it! Go watch it online right now.

9.) I went to the parade of homes this weekend. I need to make a ton of money and marry really well so I can build a sweet house and have it be awesome and beautiful like the houses we saw this weekend.

10.) I had never heard of Pulaski Days before but I went to one of the places where festivities were taking place with one of my friends from work. It. Was. Outrageous. And Awesome. I have never seen anything like it.